During roadway construction, paving machines may be used to deposit paving material to form a roadway surface. Because paving material can be expensive and is often used in large quantities, applying paving material with a thickness that deviates from a desired thickness can be inefficient. Paving material applied too thickly may be unnecessarily expensive and exhausted before the roadway surface is complete, and material applied too thinly may result in premature failure of the roadway surface due to reduced load-bearing properties.
Roadway construction may also require milling operations to remove roadway material. Over time an asphalt surface may become misshapen or otherwise unsuitable for vehicular traffic due to various factors, such as, for example, roadway usage, temperature variation, moisture variation, and physical age. In order to rehabilitate roadways for continued vehicular use, spent asphalt may be removed in preparation for resurfacing.
Road milling machines may be configured to scarify, remove, or reclaim material from the surface of bituminous, concrete, or asphalt roadways and other surfaces using a planing tool. Typically, road milling machines may also include adjustable lifting members to control the depth of cut by raising or lowering the planing tool. Actuation of the lifting members may be controlled by a machine operator or other suitable control mechanism.
To construct roadways of suitable quality, both paving and milling operations may require the addition or removal of paving material of a certain thickness. Conventional paving or milling operations may use string-lines or multiple grading stakes placed about the worksite as reference points. An operator may use the reference points to ensure that an appropriate thickness of material is added or removed to form a desired surface. The accuracy of surface formation may be dependent upon the number of grade stakes used and the distance between each grade stake. For large worksites, stake placement can be a lengthy and tedious process. Further, during paving or milling operations, additional personnel may be required to monitor the operation to ensure that the newly formed surface is of suitable quality.
One method of forming new surfaces without the use of grade stakes includes a laser plane configured as a reference point. During operation, a work machine may reference the laser plane while adding or removing material in order to create a desired surface. One such system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,227,761 (“the '761 patent”), to Kieranen et al., issued May 8, 2001. The system disclosed in the '761 patent may be used to form three-dimensional curved surfaces. The system includes a controller for controlling the contouring assembly and a tracking device to track the position of the contouring assembly.
However, the system of the '761 patent defines a surface using a complex set of instructions. Three coordinates are required to define a node, and multiple nodes are required to define the surface. A user must select a minimum of three or four nodes to define a surface, and even more must be selected to define more complex surfaces. The system of the '761 patent increases the complexity and associated costs of the contouring operation and may be overly complicated for many applications.
The transition region control system of the present disclosure is directed towards overcoming one or more of the problems set forth above.